This invention is concerned with a parison transferring mechanism for a glassware manufacturing machine. In a glassware manufacturing machine of the individual section type, parisons are formed from gobs of molten glass at parison forming stations of the sections of the machine by either a blowing or a pressing operation. The parisons are then removed from the parison forming stations by parison transferring mechanisms (also called "invert mechanisms" as the parisons are inverted as they are transferred) and are delivered to finishing stations where the parisons are formed into articles of glassware by a blowing operation. The parison transferring mechanism of a conventional machine comprises two neck ring carriers each of which provides a mounting for an arm which supports a neck ring half. The mounting comprises a T-shapd projection which fits into a complementarily-shaped open-ended slot in the arm. The carriers are movable towards one another to bring the neck ring halves into parison-gripping engagement or apart to separate the neck ring halves to release a parison. The carriers are also turnable back and forth about a common horizontal axis to move the neck ring halves between a parison-gripping position at a parison forming station and a parison-releasing position at a finishing station.
The carriers are turned through approximately 180.degree. in this movement, inverting the parisons.
The mounting for each arm is arranged so that the arm projects away from the carrier in a plane normal to the horizontal axis, when the T-shaped projection is received in the slot in the arm. The arm can be moved along the T-shaped projection so that, when the carrier is turned into an orientation such that the arm projects horizontally (as it does at the parison-gripping position and at the parison-releasing position), the height of the arm relative to the axis can be adjusted. The height of the arm has to be adjusted in accordance with the height of the moulds used to form the parisons and the height of both arms must be equal. The present procedure is to position a feeler gauge on top of the mould, the gauge being set to having a thickness equal to the required height which the neck ring halves should reach above the mould, the arm is then mounted on the carrier by fitting the T-shaped projection thereof into the slot in the arm, the arm is moved downwards with the projection sliding along the slot until the arm contacts the gauge, the arm is then tapped with a hammer into intimate engagement with the gauge, the arm is then clamped against movement on the carrier by means of a clamping screw mounted on the carrier and operable to engage the arm and force it away from the carrier so that the T-shaped projection and edge portions of the slot come into firm engagement, and the gauge is then removed. This is a time-consuming operation which has to be carried out on the machine whenever the arms are replaced whether because of wear or for a job change and causes considerable down-time for the machine.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a parison transferring mechanism in which the arms can be mounted on the carriers more rapidly than in the procedure mentioned above.